Just a Dream
by The Great NeoDragon
Summary: Introspective One-Shot. Enraged by the never-ending laughter, Kane unleashed his wrath upon all who dared to cross him. But as he is about to make Rob pay the ultimate price for his treachery, something stops him. (Re-written)


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Just a Dream

Life is just a dream. A never ending recurrence of darkness and brightness, hatred and an occasional moment of optimism. Rarely do any see beyond the pastel colors and smiling faces to the nightmare it truly is. Some consciously stare into the beautiful prism and shield their eyes from the hovering darkness.

They cannot accept the truth. That the prism is just a ruse to make you believe that wishes can come true. To make you believe that evil is only in fairy tales. Why should they believe any differently? Life is just a dream, after all, and aren't dreams nothing more than an imaginary world, free for you to manipulate to satisfy your own wants and desires?

Not that I am any different. For an eternity my eyes strained to focus on the positive aspects of this imaginary world. I _wanted_ to be naïve. But sometimes the truth is a little more apparent for some than others.

The fire. The scars. The stares. The laughter…

The only _true_ reality is the laughter. A laughter that carried into this dream world. A laughter that followed me, haunted me, never ceasing, not even for a moment.

It was when I began to see this nightmare for what it truly was.

I have seen evil. I have stepped into the darkness. As much as I wished for naivety, once I had seen the beautiful façade for what it truly was, it was gone from my sight forever.

Rob Van Dam should have known what he was getting into. While his blindness compelled him to his fate, at the same time he truly didn't deserve it. He chose to fix his gaze upon the beautiful and tried to persuade me to focus upon them as well. I tried to tell him.

He was simply too good, too pure, to see the world for what it was. I forgave him for his ignorance, even admired it. He stood at the door to darkness and still saw the light. His integrity never ceased to amaze me.

After a while, Rob began to pressure me about the mask. He simply couldn't understand why I would never show him. I tried to tell him.

The mask was the only thing that silenced the laughter. It was the one thing that sheltered me from the world, and the world from my horrible disfigurements.

Yet, how do you explain something like that to one who sees the world through rose-colored glasses? I couldn't expect him to understand.

Never, never did I expect Rob to go so far as to _suggest_ to Eric Bischoff that the stipulation for my match against Triple H would be for me to remove my mask. He betrayed me, just like everyone else…

When I was forced to remove my mask…everything just fell apart. The laughter came back so strongly, so quickly…it was disorientating. At that moment…something within me shattered, leaving nothing but numbness. I saw the darkness so clearly then. More clearly than I ever had. Any traces of light were long distinguished. I could hear nothing but the laughter. Everyone, everywhere, they all laughed at me. Laughed at my pain. So I vowed to hurt them, all of them.

Their screams of fear and pain were the only things I could hear through the laughter. The sounds were intoxicating. For once, in this nightmare I was not the victim but the victimizer. Even if my only real, available choice was to hurt others, it was one that I made with great eagerness. I wanted to make everyone see the darkness, to understand the horror that Life truly was. I wanted everyone to pay for their ignorance.

The lives and welfare of others meant nothing to me. Life is, after all, just a dream. A fantasy. What care should I have for hallucinations?

Rob was the one who I wanted to pay the most. He betrayed me. He encouraged my exposure. He…I wanted him to suffer. To feel my pain.

While chaining him to the post, I was almost drunk with glee. I had such plans for him! Finally, his naivety would be his downfall!

Yet…when he awoken to the smell of gasoline and looked upon me with frightened eyes, the excitement of causing harm was no longer there. Something in his eyes…stirred something within me that I had fancied irretrievably gone.

The fear was there, for certain. But there was something else…a look of incredible hurt. Within the watery pools lied a reflection of my own pain… Suddenly, this wasn't so fun anymore.

So I just left him there, drenched and confused. Despite the trauma that I had caused him so readily before, the thought of causing him anymore… I couldn't stand it. Life is just a dream, a nightmare, nothing is real. Nothing but the laughter. So why?! Why was I suddenly consumed with such crippling guilt?! How could I still care for the one who had betrayed me so?!!

I stumbled into my locker room, my strength rapidly waning. For the past few weeks, rest had been a rarity but only now did I feel the effects. As I entered the room, what ever remained of my endurance was gone. I fell onto my knees and cast my eyes on the cold, damp ceiling.

Life is just a dream.

Somebody, please, wake me up…

The End.

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Author's Notes: I decided to re-write portions of it, just cuz I wanted to. ;p This fic wasn't doing too well, so I wondered if something was lacking. Hopefully anything that was missing before has been added. I didn't add all that much, but I did change around a few other things. This fic's a bit depressing, now that I think about it. (But then again aren't most of my fics? ;) ) WWE has lately made Kane so incredibly two-dimensionally evil, I've been trying to figure how I could try to explain how horribly destructive he has become while still portraying him as a sympathetic character. I guess, if you really wanted to, you could consider this a semi-sequel to 'Nothing.' The reason I wouldn't recommend it is that Kane's mindset in this fic is a bit different than in 'Nothing.' Either way works. I hope you like the fic!


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